Chapter 30 – Back in Time
"Right," Markus said, standing up to lead the way. "Let's get this over with."
Everyone followed Markus out of the kitchen and up the ladder to the attic. They arrived swiftly and Andrea and her counterpart stepped forward ahead of everyone else and stood close to the time machine. Andrea smiled and turned to her older self.
"It's time?" she asked
Her counterpart nodded. "Just do as I told you and everything else will fall into place. The rest as of now is up to you."
Andrea nodded back and turned to Markus. "How do you work this machine? Tell me at once."
Markus glanced at the professor, who nodded. He sighed. "Plug it in and switch it on. After that, when the machine has warmed up you need to type your destination time into this keypad and push ENTER."
"That's it?" Andrea said excitedly.
Her counterpart nodded. "This is where I leave you now. The rest is up to you." She headed for the ladder and left, shutting the door behind her.
Andrea beamed, rubbing her hands together with glee. "Right, here we go." She ran over to the plug on the opposite side of the room and jammed the plug into its socket.
Emmy frowned as she did so and looked at the professor. "Is this supposed to happen?" she whispered. "Our older selves said nothing about Andrea actually getting access to the machine."
"I'm not sure," he replied, also in a whisper. "I'm not entirely sure what is going on here. Why did her older self leave?"
Emmy shrugged back as Andrea ran back to the machine and switched it on. The machine sprang to life, buzzing and whirring once more. She sat on a nearby crate and waited for it to warm up.
"Layton?" Markus whispered. "I'm not sure if we should let this nutter off on her own with a time machine. She's already tried to kill us all back there, who knows what she'll do to you or Emmy in the past?"
"He's right," Bronev nodded. "I propose that we go with her."
"Yes, I suppose that is our best course of action..." the professor trailed off as Andrea leaped up off of her crate and typed in her destination.
"So, will we stay here and go with her now, or will we follow along later?" Markus asked.
"We'll stay here. At least then we will be able to follow her," the professor decided.
Andrea stood up straight and turned to the others. "Get out," she said.
"No," Emmy snarled, folding her arms. "I won't stand by and let you destroy us. Either we go with you or you don't go at all. Your choice."
Andrea glared at her. "fine." She jabbed the ENTER button.
As soon as she did this, the arms began to spin. The arms started spinning, round and round, faster and faster, creating a curvature in the centre of the room. Slowly, the curvature began to open up in the middle. The opening in the curvature got larger and larger and began to swallow up the machine and everyone else too. The speed of the spinning arms increased even further until everyone was completely engorged by the curvature.
Eventually, the spinning began to cease and, after a while, the curvature was gone.
Once the curvature was gone, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Whenever they were, they had arrived unharmed.
The moment she thought that the coast was clear Andrea pushed past Little Emmy, Luke and Celeste and ran for the window. She opened it, went out through it and was gone. Emmy and the professor ran for the window to see her running off towards the city centre. Emmy swore under her breath.
"We have to go after her," she said determinedly, running for the trapdoor, but Celeste rushed forward and grabbed her arm.
"Stop!" she whispered urgently. "There's someone down there."
Everyone crowded around the trap door and listened. A familiar sounding voice could be heard calling out down the hall.
"Markus, will you hurry up, you're going to be late for school!"
"Yes mother!" came the reply. Markus swore under his breath.
"Our younger selves," he whispered. He turned to his mother. "What are we going to do now? We can't just go down there..."
"well, if your younger self is going to school, that mean's I will be too, because I was teaching back then, wasn't I?" Celeste said. "So they should be gone in a minute or so... we just have to wait it out up here."
Everyone sat down on the floor.
"We'll have to be very careful going around here," the professor said quietly. "Most of us have younger selves in this London, so we have to try not to bump into them on our way around. Is that clear?"
Everyone nodded as Luke looked at the keypad of the machine. He gasped audibly before stopping himself. "Professor, we're twelve and a half years in the past!"
Everyone stared at Luke.
"I'm serious! Today's date is 13th December 2001."
Leon and Little Emmy looked at one another in bewilderment. "But that is the day before myself and Emmeline were taken to the future!" Leon whispered, shocked.
"But why did she come a day early?" Luke asked, confused.
"Because in this time, we are living in Ireland – me and Uncle Leon – looking for signs of the grounds of rebirth," Emmy replied. "She's probably going to make her way there tonight and take little Emmy and Leon back here tomorrow..."
The professor's eyes widened. "Well then we know what Andrea is going to do. She is here to do exactly that – bring you two to our time. But one thing doesn't make sense."
"What?" Luke asked.
"How is she going to get them there if in this time, the machine is not functional?" the Professor asked.
Celeste frowned. "Well, I think it is in the same state as it was before our Markus and Dimitri fixed it, as James and Claire have already passed away at this time, I think..."
"James?" Emmy asked.
"My father," Markus said quickly. "And I think I know how."
"Really? Do go on," the professor said.
"Well, you remember when Little Emmy said that she spied on Andrea and saw that she had surveillance of us? Well, she must have seen how we fixed the machine. I think she is going to repair the machine, the same way that we did, and take them back that way. It's the only plausible way that I can think of..."
"Yes, I think you're spot on," Bronev agreed.
"So, we know where she's going, and how she's going to get Leon and Little Emmy to the future in the first place... so we don't really have to do anything, because she has to do all of that in order for the pieces of her plan to fall into place. Is that right?" Luke asked. "Because it's giving me a real headache trying to figure it all out."
"Not quite, my boy," the professor smiled. "So, I believe that our course of action should be to lie low for the moment and try to follow Andrea as soon as we get out of here, which shouldn't be too long..."
And, as if on cue, the heard the front door slam shut as the Celeste and Markus from twelve and a half years ago headed out.
"... and, as I have here in my hand the memory eraser that I took from Andrea, we should be able to effectively remove Little Emmy and Leon's memories of their time in the future and take them home tomorrow morning, to the exact moment when Andrea leaves."
Little Emmy's eyes widened. "Really?" she asked.
The professor smiled at her. "Yes, really," he said. "Everything will be back to normal soon. I promise."
"Right," Celeste smiled. "The house is empty now, so we can go back down. But we'd better wait a minute before going out."
"Oh, and Little Emmy, close the window; we don't want Celeste's younger self to suspect anything," the professor said quickly.
Little Emmy nodded quickly and obliged.
Everyone hurried down the ladder and ran in to the front room and over to the window. There was no sign of another Celeste or Markus in the vicinity. The professor breathed a sigh of relief.
"The coast is clear," he said. "We had better leave now before anyone sees us. Quickly everyone."
"Hold on," Celeste said. "I think we ought to verify where we're going. And I think we ought to split up. Going around in a huge group like this is going to make us too conspicuous."
"Celeste is right," Emmy agreed. "Luke can come with me and Hershel, and I think Celeste and Markus should just hang around somewhere their younger selves will never go, like the bus station, and we'll come and get you when we're making our move. Little Emmy and Leon an just go around wherever, as they don't live here and won't get recognised, and neither will I."
"But what about the professor?" Luke asked.
"Well, the professor didn't have his reputation as a top hated English gentleman built up in this time, Luke, so I don't see why he wouldn't blend in as well," Celeste smiled.
"So that's sorted," Emmy smiled. "Let's go."
An hour later, after a lot of arguing over ethics and the rightness of her solution, Emmy and the professor had decided how they were going to get to Ireland. Emmy was to steal a car from the local garage and they would drive to Pembroke harbour and stowaway on a ferry, which was to leave at nine o'clock in the evening for Rosslare in Wexford, where they would steal another car and drive to Cork, and get there just in time for Andrea to leave with Little Emmy and Leon to take them to the future and they could erase the memories of their Little Emmy and Leon and take them home. Then they would do the same thing to get home that evening and then they would try to get access to the time machine to go home once more and see what Andrea would do next.
At that moment, however, Emmy and the professor were stood outside a gas station waiting for Luke, who had picked the perfect moment to need the toilet. They were stood together in silence, hand in hand, as they waited. After a while, Emmy spoke up.
"Do you like the name Alfendi?"
"Hmm?"
"Alfendi. Do you like that name?"
"Er..." the professor was unsure of how to answer that question. In truth, he wasn't very keen on the name, but didn't want to let on, in case Emmy was particularly fond of the name and he was to offend her by saying so.
Emmy smiled at him. "Because I don't."
The professor laughed. "Really?"
"Yes, really," Emmy laughed. "I can't for the life of me see why our older selves picked that name if they didn't like it."
"Well, I'm not sure. But our son did look like an Alfendi, though, didn't he?" the professor smiled.
"Hmm... yeah..."
The professor smiled again and wrapped his arms around Emmy. "I'm sure it'll grow on us."
"Mmm." Emmy leaned in and kissed the professor.
Suddenly, Luke came out of the gas station. The professor and Emmy quickly broke apart, grinning.
"Sorry about that, Luke," Emmy smiled, letting go of the professor.
"Er... that's okay—" Luke stopped, with a look of pure shock on his face.
"Luke? My boy, are you alright?" the professor asked, looking worried.
Luke pointed a shaky finger behind them. The professor and Emmy turned around. Emmy's face fell and the professor's jaw dropped.
"I... I thought...?"
Tears started in the eyes of the young woman who stood before them as she stared, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
"Hershel?" she said in disbelief.
"C-Claire?"